Direct determination of the amplitude and the phase of femtosecond light pulses

A direct measurement of the amplitude and the phase of a femtosecond light pulse is performed for the first time to our knowledge. The measurement is made in the frequency domain, and the time dependence of the field can be easily obtained by a Fourier transform. The technique relies on a pulse synthesis scheme to unravel the frequency dependence of the phase. A mask filters the spectrum, which gives rise to a pulse with a measurable temporal profile related to the frequency dependence of the phase. In particular, with a rectangular slit the time delay of the synthesized pulse is the first derivative of the phase with respect to the frequency of the original pulse at the central frequency of the filter. The amplitude of the spectrum is obtained from the power spectrum.